Did DOLPHINS and whales EVOLVE? Evolution says fish grew lungs, slithered ashore, grew legs, changed scales and skin for hair and hide, gills for nostrils, and altered their whole skeletal system, flesh, circulatory system, reproductive system, eyes, nervous system and complete makeup. Then, says evolution, many RETURNED to the sea, DISCARDING their legs, changing them into flippers — changed their hair for specially constructed skin, managed to shift their noses to the backs of their heads, changed their whole shape, skeletal framework, metabolism, nervous system, circulatory system, diet and digestive system, and even "evolved" a built-in grin! DID THEY, REALLY? Dolphins grin at such stories — and whales prove the whole thing is a fluke!

A man at the helm of an outboard motor boat in Hokianga Harbour, New Zealand, was startled to see a playful Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin cavorting in his wake. Soon, many boat operators noted the dolphin following their boats — strangely attracted, it seemed, to the sound of their motors. Then, bathers in the surf at the little beach town of Opononi began seeing the lonely female dolphin, swimming gaily among them in the shallow water. As the dolphin grew more and more familiar with the bathers, she would swim with them, even allowing herself to be stroked and held. She seemed to like children best and would play ball with them, retrieving a ball and throwing it back to them with her mouth. She would even let some of the smaller ones ride on her back. The little town of Opononi called the lonely female dolphin "Opo," and her fame spread throughout New Zealand, and finally around the world. The little hotel was booked solid for months in advance, and the curious came from everywhere. Campers caused traffic jams as the crowds grew. Opononi passed a special law to protect the friendly creature, and a sign was erected at the town's entrance reading, "Welcome to Opononi, but don't try to shoot our gay dolphin!" From 1955 to 1956 the fame of the friendly creature mounted until one morning when she did not appear. Children were apprehensive, and many concerned people expressed fear she had been killed, or injured. An extensive search finally discovered her body, washed ashore among some rocks. It was theorized the playful porpoise had been attracted by a fisherman's motor, and, swimming happily up to the boat, had been killed by a charge of explosives the fisherman was using to kill and stun fish. The townspeople buried Opo in a sad, formal ceremony; and a grave marker and monument to the friendly dolphin still remain. And then there was "Pelorus Jack," a famous dolphin who escorted ships and boats across Admiralty Bay, New Zealand, for three decades. Many tourists planned to make this steamship run, just to catch a glimpse of the dolphin — and a special law was passed to protect him.

The Remarkable Intelligence of Dolphins

These experiences with the friendly creatures we call "Dolphins" or "Porpoises" have led man to discover, in recent years, that the toothed whales and dolphins are among some of the most intelligent of all creatures — rated by some as superior to dogs and horses. Visitors to the large Oceanariums are amazed at the antics of captive porpoises — but not as amazed as their trainers at their grasp of directions, and the speed with which they learn. A professional animal trainer, Wally Ross, said, "After you've worked with porpoises — chimpanzees, dogs, horses and elephants seem as dull as white mice." The porpoises play many kinds of games — leap out of the water in graceful formation — tow dogs in tiny boats across lagoons, seize rings, running flags up poles, and can toss a football 50 or 60 feet (and with a perfect spiral!). Porpoises can throw things with great accuracy. Some time ago, a group of porpoises at Marineland demonstrated their ability by throwing 20 rare tropical fish out of their tank. They didn't eat any of them — just ejected them from the tank they considered their own. As if to rub salt in the wound — after they had thrown the rare fish, one by one, into the spectator area, they saved the very last one until the right moment, and then bounced it off the head of the aquarium director as he left the tank. Scientists are striving to measure the intelligence of the porpoises — and are continually amazed at the creatures.

No "Bends," No Headaches, No Shortness of Breath!

But porpoises are being used for far more than casual entertainment and amusement. Today, in the U.S. Navy's man-in-the-sea program, Sealab II, off San Diego, the Navy uses a seven-foot porpoise named "Tuffy" as a messenger boy. Porpoises can dive more than 1,000 feet below the ocean surface, and come up without wasting time on decompression (an absolute necessity for a man to survive, since the formation of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream can cause agonizing death or permanent injury). They can swim at speeds of better than 24 miles per hour, and locate objects up to 400 yards away with underwater sonar clicks. They can also communicate on two separate voice channels at once. Tuffy was tested in Sealab experiments by a diver turning off his homing buzzer, and fastening a nylon cord to Tuffy's plastic harness. The dolphin immediately carried the line to another diver, who, pretending to be lost, had turned on a buzzer in the murky water 160 feet away. (Visibility, 10 feet.) This experiment led to Tuffy's ability to retrieve a buzzer-equipped $4,700 rocket booster shot 200 yards out into the Pacific. When the Sealab divers were remaining at 205 feet down for 15-day periods, Tuffy was their messenger to the surface. He wore a plastic harness, carried their mail back and forth in a waterproof tube, and took tools to the divers. Dolphins emit a series of clicks, whistles and blatting sounds underwater — and make squawks and squeaks with their heads out of water. Currently, in Pasadena, scientists are trying to decipher the manner in which the creatures "talk" by running a series of recorded sounds through computers to find sound patterns, and see in what way different sounds are related to different actions. The dolphin's sonar is so sophisticated, he can DIRECT it, unlike man-made sonar. Most of man's sonar uses a pure tone — while that of the dolphins mixes the signals into high-and low-frequency components. Another thing — no one has ever been able to "jam" a dolphin's sonar. Says Doctor Sidney Galler of ONR (Office of Naval Research), "The porpoise's echo-location system and navigation capability is far superior to the most sophisticated system we have in our most modern submarines, and it weighs only a few pounds. This is a marvel of micro-miniaturization!" The "sonar" of the porpoises is termed "second to none," including the echo-ranging of the bats. But scientists don't yet know HOW the dolphins and whales make such sounds. They have no vocal cords!

The Toothed Whales

All dolphins and whales are mammals. They are warm-blooded, air-breathing creatures who bear their young alive, and suckle them, like all mammals. But whales are divided into different categories, depending upon their specialized food-getting equipment. The great Sperm Whale has teeth, while the mammoth Right Whale, and Blue Whale do not. The migrations of the whales, their feeding habits, their ability to store up vast amounts of body fat, their prodigious size and strength, all have given rise to a sense of awe and amazement at these monsters of all life. Their remarkable ability to navigate in the PITCH DARKNESS of the ocean depths (there is NO LIGHT WHATEVER below approximately 1,000 feet — but only eternal blackness) has amazed whalers and scientists. Dolphins generally do not go below 1,000 feet — but the great whales have been known to go far deeper. Has it ever occurred to you that we are living among creatures every whit as amazing, as awesome, as terrifying, or as humorous, as those found in the fossil record? But think of the stories you would read if whales had been found ONLY AS FOSSILS! Is the mammoth whale REALLY the result of an evolutionary return to the sea? Did dolphins and toothed whales REALLY become disgusted with their "life on land," and effect all those REMARKABLE changes (only a FEW of which have been mentioned here) to enable them to become dolphins and whales? So evolution would have you believe. But the whales and dolphins — among the most remarkable of all living creatures — cannot be explained away by unimaginable caprice. While whales have a whale of a tale to tell — and the stories about them all are well worth reading — those tales are nowhere NEAR the "whoppers" of the supposed story of their "evolution."

A Whale of a Fish Story

Evolutionists say "the whale's past is extremely obscure. All we know is that sometime... some smallish, four-footed land animals began a series of extraordinarily rapid evolutionary changes. In the geologically short span of 50 million years they learned to swim instead of walk, and to reproduce offspring able to swim from the moment they left the womb." (The Living World of the Sea, William J. Cromie, p.268-269.) But that's only a part of the fantastic story. Later, goes the tale, these beasts lost their ears and hind legs — developed a body shaped like a torpedo, with a horizontal tail, arranged for their nostrils to move up to the top of their heads, lost their hair, totally changed their whole metabolism, their bone structure, their skin texture and composition, enlarged their brains, altered their nervous system, changed their whole digestive apparatus, altered their eyes, their teeth and their ears — and became dolphins and toothed whales. But DID THEY REALLY do all this? Can it be PROVED? Is there fossil evidence? Are these ideas accurate? How could they "gradually" change in such a drastic manner? What CAUSED these changes?

A Plethora of Missing Evidence

If you were to ask an evolutionist, "Are YOU SURE whales and dolphins used to be LAND ANIMALS?" he would probably answer, "SURE, we're sure!" If you asked next, "But do you have any PROOF?' His answer would be.... but let's quote from some answers to just such questions. "After adapting to life on land, the ancestors of porpoises, for reasons no one knows, went back to the sea. This happened about fifty million years ago; and just what the land animal was like no one can be sure, for the 'missing links' in its evolution are lost beneath the sea. IT IS CERTAIN, however, that the land mammal went through a long process of readapting to life in the water." ("Porpoises, Our Friends in the Sea," Robert Conly, National Geographic, p. 404-406, Sept. 1966.) How about that? How would you like to be tried in court by that kind of "evidence?" First you're told, in definite, positive terms, these creatures DID EVOLVE from land animals. WHAT KIND of land animals? No one knows. Where is the EVIDENCE? It's nonexistent. Missing. How can they be so SURE? Well — they just ARE! One evolutionist admitted, "As the science of oceanography progresses, we may find the whales' complete skeletal record in the oceans' bottoms. Until then the guesses are further apart than those for man's evolutionary record." (Man and Dolphin, John C. Kelly, p. 181.) Notice it carefully. The ideas about man's evolution are, admittedly, GUESSES. And some of the guesses are pretty wild. But, admits evolution — the guesses concerning the past "development" of whales are even WILDER! That's really crawling out on a limb. Or, perhaps we should say, a flipper. But How does an intricately designed, "highly specialized" (a term evolutionists use to hide their amazement of the marvelous complexity of many creatures) animal "evolve?" How does "evolution" occur? The evolutionists theorize that, GIVEN ENOUGH TIME virtually anything can happen. Do explosions in print shops produce the unabridged dictionary? Do dump trucks, dumping a load of bricks, produce palatial mansions, complete with carpets, appliances, chandeliers, and rare paintings? Do city dumps produce typewriters which, falling together, accidentally type out the Encyclopaedia Americana? Yet these are some of the very arguments used in college classrooms today! But WHY do evolutionists "take the long way around" in their guesses about the "evolution" of whales and dolphins? Simply because, to remain loyal to their THEORY, they MUST. You see, most (but by no means all) evolutionists claim life began in the sea. (Some say it began between cracks in rocks; others say from polka-dotted air bubbles in the sea; others from scum; others from "soup" and still others from "slime.") Since they have generally agreed life began in the sea, they must insist that ALL living forms "gradually" found their way from the sea to the land, and to the air. But MAMMALS, in the broad classification of vertebrates, bearing their young alive, and suckling those young — must BREATHE AIR. Fish also live from "air" but the air is filtered from the water through their marvelously intricate gills. So — in evolutionary thought, it was necessary for these air-breathing, live-bearing mammals of the deep to "take the long way around," so to speak, first "evolving" into ANIMALS on the dry land, and then evolving PART WAY back to fish, but "keeping" their lungs and their method of bearing their young alive, and suckling them. The evidence for such fantastic developments? All missing. There is none. Evolution doesn't know what KIND of "animal" or WHICH animal Of WHAT kind of fossil remains (because there ARE NO SUCH REMAINS) to claim as the most ancient "ancestor" of these mammals of the sea. But, they staunchly affirm their fantastic FAITH in such a theory, in spite of the utter lack of evidence. Again, however, there is disagreement among evolutionists. "The ancestors of all whales, we know by fossil remains, were land mammals" asserted Rachel Carson, in the book, The Sea Around Us, on page 40. "They must have been predatory beasts," continues the imaginary assertion, "if we are to judge by their powerful jaws and teeth. Perhaps, in their foragings about the deltas of great rivers or around the edges of shallow seas, they discovered the abundance of fish and other marine life and over the centuries formed the habit of following them farther and farther into the sea." But is this true? Did it really HAPPEN? There is no evidence. No intermediate species. No PART-land animal, and PART whale; no half-leg, half-flipper; no skeletons, no fossil imprints, no evidence of any kind. Another authority states, "NO FOSSIL REMAINS OF THE LAND ANCESTOR OF THE WHALE HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED AS YET" (Introduction to Historical Geology, William L. Stokes, p. 419-420). Yet — in Spite of MISSING, "evidence" and NO proof, evolutionists continue clinging to their faith. Faith in nothing.

How to Breathe Through the Back of Your Head

How do whales and dolphins breathe? How do they breathe while they're asleep? Why don't they unconsciously open their air vents, and take a breath of seawater? Scientists have discovered the centers controlling breathing are arranged differently in dolphins than in man and other mammals. Man is continually surrounded by a mantle of air — so he breathes involuntarily (without being conscious of a definite task of respiration) most of the time. While breathing can become conscious, or voluntary — it is involuntary most of the time. But what about a dolphin? It's only logical to admit that an air-breathing creature who lives in the sea must be somehow CONSCIOUS of where it is at each breath — or it could drown! What about sleep? What about those deep dives? Frankly, scientists admit what they do NOT know about whales and dolphins is a great deal! They do not know, for instance, how it is whales, seals, and dolphins can survive dives of several hundred fathoms without developing a terrible case of "bends" or caisson disease. Human divers can be killed if surfacing rapidly from 200 feet or so, while dolphins can plunge down much further than that, and return to the surface immediately, with no ill effects. In attempting to explain these marvelous feats, one scientist admitted, "The plain truth is, however, that we really do not know [how dolphins and whales survive such deep dives], since it is obviously impossible to confine a living whale and experiment on it, and almost as difficult to dissect a dead one satisfactorily" (The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson, p. 41). The amazing breath control of these creatures is without parallel in all the creation. Scientists are not yet sure, but they believe the centers controlling respiration probably are located in the cerebral cortex, instead of in the brain stem, as in man. If this is true — then breathing is always a conscious and voluntary act for dolphins and whales — and never involuntary. In one experiment, a dolphin had suffered from possible anoxemia, and was placed back in a tank. It fell onto the right side when it tried to swim, and appeared unable to rise to the surface normally to breathe. It uttered a short, sharp, high-pitched whistle, in two parts, with a rising and falling pitch — heard not only audibly by observers, but also recorded on tape. The other two animals in the tank swam immediately to the stricken porpoise, swam under his head, and pushed him to the surface so he could breathe. He breathed, submerged, and then followed a twittering, whistling conversation among the three. They took turns swimming along the right side of the injured animal, allowing him to press against their bodies so he could rise to the surface and breathe! In their subsequent interference in what the animals were doing, the scientists discovered yet another amazing fact about dolphins. They took the stricken animal from the tank, and tried draining water out of its blow-hole by holding its head downward at a 45-degree angle. But they found dolphins can voluntarily blow water out of the lungs into the mouth (but remember — their nose is in the back of their head!), apparently able to disengage the larynx from the nasal pharynx! Until that time, scientists had falsely assumed the air and food passages were completely separate.

And What About Birth?

Baby dolphins are born UNDER water — and must, within moments, take their first breath of air, just as human babies do! But there's an important difference! Human babies just GASP for air, involuntarily, and breathing becomes an immediate unconscious act. But not so for baby dolphins. As mama dolphin nudges them gently to the surface, they must somehow AUTOMATICALLY open and breathe through their brand-new little air vent AT JUST THE RIGHT MOMENT, then close it tight again, submerging to swim alongside their parent. IMMEDIATELY, they must establish PERFECTLY the voluntary act of breathing by opening and closing the air vent at precisely that instant when the dorsal hump is above the surface and just barely before it plunges below again. A second too soon — and the baby creature would drown. A second too late, and the same thing would happen. And baby porpoises nurse under water, too. Swimming alongside their mothers, the little grinning creatures suckle at their mother's specially built underwater paps, somehow managing to receive only milk, and no salt water. That brings to mind another amazing proclivity of the porpoises.

What Scientists Don't Know!

Scientists have wondered HOW PORPOISES DRINK WATER! Some think the animals receive water only by eating the flesh of fish; others have wondered if they actually swallow salt water, and somehow desalinize it in the digestive system. Others have wondered if it is somehow filtered into the creatures' bodies through the skin. As a matter of fact, what is NOT KNOWN about dolphins is quite substantial. Scientists do know whales and dolphins MIGRATE. But how do they? No one knows for sure. It is thought by some that they actually migrate by the sun, moon and stars, somehow solving the highly complex and difficult task of getting a spray-soaked view of distant stars through eyes that are built more for seeing under water than out, (though a dolphin's vision is EXCELLENT in either element) or perhaps a distorted view of only a few of the stars through the water. Others suppose they may migrate depending upon depth soundings, type of ocean bottom, ocean currents, water temperature, plankton (krill), taste of water, or salinity. Actually, as all this indicates, they just don't know how dolphins and whales migrate. Scientists wonder just how intelligent dolphins are. For instance, it has been suggested by one that dolphins have a kind of "nomadic culture," and possibly even herd fish along with them in their travels for food! Since a baby dolphin is not weaned for eighteen to twenty-one months, scientists believe the babies are taught many things by their mothers during this time, and that their large brains (no whale has yet been found with a brain smaller than man's) are able to store up an amazing amount of knowledge based on the mother's chattering, whistles, gestures, body movements and actions. Their vision is amazing. To avoid the effect you would experience if you looked up from a swimming pool with a face mask on (you would see only a distorted mirror except for the area directly above your head), dolphins stick their heads clear up out of the water, looking around in all directions. Their vision is equally as good IN the water or OUT. Scientists wonder whether dolphins have a peculiarly shaped cornea — shaped differently in the center than at the edges. They do know that the iris has a curtain which, when illuminated in a bright light, shows a U-shaped slit. This slit would be used in the air, but in the water this curtain would be raised as light is reduced enabling the center of the cornea to focus in water on the same fovea. Do dolphins use muscular control on their corneas? Possibly so. The cornea could be made to bulge and flatten alternately by muscular control along the free edge of the cartilage shell around it — since the animal has unusual control over the eyeball, allowing it to look upward, backward, downward or forward. The cornea could be, scientists believe, a very complex water-containing bag, which, when alternately flattening or relaxing, may be able to focus perfectly in the two totally different media; air and water! But they don't know for sure! And a dolphin's skin is remarkable! Ever try to hose some dirt off a doormat, or piece of old carpet? The effect is virtually no spray! Scientists have found the dolphins have a remarkable many-layered skin, part of which becomes completely watersoaked, and allows them to travel much faster through the water. The Navy is thinking of experimenting with skin-like coverings over the hulls of their submarines to achieve even greater speed. Incidentally, next time you see a picture of the blunt snout of a U. S. Navy nuclear submarine — remember: it was designed that way when they found the blunter snout of the huge whales is more aquadynamically sound for speed than the sharper prows of older model submarines.

The Dilemma of the Doubting Dolphin

But now let's go back in time. Way, way back — beyond the wildest imaginations of even an evolutionist. Let's be sure to include ENOUGH time — so let's go back so far it's impossible to write the figure. Remember, there had to be enough genetic mutations to produce a FIRST experience for some remote ancestor of the dolphins. There had to be that FIRST time in the history of dolphindom when some of these creatures simply did NOT come back to shore again. So let's imagine we're watching Dither, the doleful dolphin, doubtfully deducing whether he can dive into the deep and not drown. Dither is perplexed. His ancestors had managed, by vast genetic mutation (or so the story would go), to exchange their legs for fins, drop off their hair, and exchange it for a fantastically designed, triple-layered hide that soaks up the water and increases speed; move the nose up to the back of the head, alter the whole metabolism, diet, bone structure, reproductive apparatus, brain size, eyes, lungs, nervous system and voice. He has somehow managed to evolve all of this in spite of the millions of tragedies that brought Dither to this dubious dilemma. You see, millions of his ancestors had been drowning because their genetic structure had not completely mutated. They became water-logged as their hair soaked up the water and their not quite flippers (which were really legs, with claws) couldn't propel them back to the surface quickly enough. Scores more drowned in the shallow water trying to operate their new air vents by involuntary breathing. Millions of babies drowned, repeatedly, when they were born underwater, and immediately sucked gallons of water through the top of their heads. Millions of others died as they attempted that still deeper dive after an escaping morsel of fast yellowtail; plunging down to 750 feet, they surfaced again, only to collapse in spasms of caisson disease, as nitrogen bubbles formed in their bloodstream. Actually, such creatures never existed. Dither doesn't exist, either; since his ancestors all perished. But let's use our imaginations with great porpoise — er, I mean, purpose! Dither knows a great voyage is at hand. His new genes have given him the urge. His instinct tells him he must be properly equipped to survive in this great epic journey (he has finally decided to migrate about 8,000 miles across the trackless seas). "Let's see, now," Dither muses (figuratively), "compass? Maps and charts? Soundings of the ocean depths? What about reports on plankton, and fish locations? And how about all the vast collection of meteorological knowledge, astronomy, and information about currents, tides, salinity, ocean taste, and how to observe the stars through salt spray?" Dither delays. But some strange evolutionary compulsion (perhaps the same feeling some students experience when reading similar tales in more erudite language?) grips the dubious dolphin. Taking a great gulp of air, he dives into the heaving deep. Happily, he swims along, surfacing regularly for air. He has evolved a fairly successful method of breathing now — blowing out just as he surfaces to clear his new, behind-the-head nose, and then gasping in a quick breath just before his lunge carries him under again. For miles he swims. He gets very, very thirsty. After all, those last few sardines he ate were pretty salty! Now for a drink! But — "Oh, No!" He forgot! He always used to wander ashore for a drink of nice, fresh water, like any self-respecting, half-dolphin, half-smallish-four-footed animal! He squeezed his cornea, preparing it for a view out of the water; and, by powerful sweeps of his novel new flukes, rears his head out of the waves to have a look around. Nothing. Only the broad expanse of ocean. Ocean and more ocean. And all that water and not a drop fit to drink! He hasn't yet evolved his desalinization equipment! Frantically, he swims in ever-widening circles. Panting, gasping for a drink of water — he searches frequently for shore. At last, near exhaustion, he gulps a gallon of salt water. Then he dies, in agony, as his freshwater stomach and freshwater body absorbs all that salt. The same difficulties could be applied to all the amazingly complex abilities of dolphins and whales. But let's be LOGICAL. COULD it be possible such marvelously designed, perfectly formed, amazingly complex creatures just "happened"? Remember, somehow, somewhere, IF evolution has a "leg" to stand on, that very FIRST dolphin put to sea. But what about TWO of them leaving at the same time? What about the convenient arrangements of the reproductive apparatus (which we haven't even described in this article!), and all the fantastic things you've learned about dolphins in just this one article? Remember again, that the VERY FIRST migration; the very FIRST deep dive; the very FIRST attempt to capture fish for a meal; the very FIRST use of salt water; the very FIRST underwater birth; the very FIRST voluntary control of breathing — these and a myriad more fantastic FIRSTS all had to occur AT THE SAME TIME! At the very INSTANT the first dolphin swam! And — from these fantastic abilities, do scientists see great THOUGHT and PLANNING? Do they observe great DESIGN and intricate CREATION? Do they stand in AWE of the great MIND it took to PRODUCE and put into action such huge creatures? Not at all. They see only the creature — not the Creator. They see only the material creation — not its Producer and Designer, Sustainer, and RULER! But when God wanted to HUMBLE a man, Job, He pointed out the awesome powers of the great monsters of the deep — and asked Job to compare himself with the great creation of God! When JOB saw these creatures, he ABHORRED himself — and repented In dust and ashes! He finally saw the GREAT GOD who had DESIGNED, CREATED and PRODUCED all life — and carne to see himself in utter, futile, worth less comparison to GOD, instead of in comparison with other men. It's about time you saw evolution for the ridiculous, silly sham it really is; and quit worrying about minor, technical arguments from stiff-necked, rebellious, God-defying men who have SET THEIR HEARTS and their WILLS against their Creator! It's time you KNEW your God LIVES! It's time you began to SEEK that great and loving Heavenly Father with all your heart, and all your strength; time, and PAST time, you really CALLED OUT to Him in real heartrending REPENTANCE, and discovered His great purpose in your life!